A South Devon Holiday without the car

After a week of snow my daughter and I were planning on taking a trip to Seascape Cottage with my husband following the next day. Rather than battle with the traffic I thought we’d see how easy it was to have a South Devon holiday without the car. Its fair to say not everything went to plan but I was surprised at how easy the trip ended up despite the false start. We normally drive down which from Stafford takes us 3 hours 15 min on a good run and can be more if we come across bad traffic on the way.

As my car is my comfort blanket I had never considered this as an option as we are so used to going everywhere in the car. On looking into it I was surprised to find a train that ran direct Stafford to Teignmouth (from Manchester Piccadilly) in just 3 hours 40 min – so the decision was made we were going to go for it. My husband will drop us at the train station on the way to work, we’d get the 9.02am direct to Teignmouth and be there before lunch – Simple!

What I hadn’t counted on was not getting to the train station on time due to my own stupidity of simply leaving 5 minutes too late in the snowy traffic. Our hearts sank as we put our foot on the platform just as the train took off. Determined not to be defeated, especially seeing as it was all our fault for not leaving in a good amount of time, I decided to carry on as I’d promised my daughter her first train ride - surprisingly there were lots of options.

As well as the Manchester Piccadilly train straight to Teignmouth there was;

Birmingham New Street – Bristol – Exeter – Teignmouth (3 stops)

Bristol – Exeter or Newton Abbot – Teignmouth (2 stops)

And many more through the day. We decided to go for the train straight to Bristol that left at 10am.

With 2 ½ year old in tow I grabbed a bit of breakfast to have on the way and headed to Bristol, once there we picked up a train 15 minutes later to Newton Abbot. From Newton Abbot we could have easily picked up a Taxi as its no more than 10 minutes’ drive away but determined to do this completely car less we headed off to Teignmouth. A short walk later we were on the Teignmouth to Shaldon ferry, picked up a few essentials from the Village Store and bingo we were enjoying the cosy comforts of Seascape.

If you ignore the false start it took us no more than 4 ½ hours but was a little adventure that added to the trip down, plus there were some fantastic sea views once we headed south of Exeter.

So, in short if you are looking for the most efficient trip down to Seascape be sure to turn up on time for your train but if its an adventure you’re after there’s a lot of other options to get there by train.

#SouthDevonholiday #Holidaywithoutthecar #ShaldonSelfCateringHoliday #Holidaybytrain